Sunday, February 10, 2013

The Catholic Defender: "Duc in Altum"

"Duc in Altum" means to "Put out into the deep" (Luke 5:4)!

With this command from the Lord, Jesus is inviting us to go deeper into the mysteries of our faith.

This is also the "Mission Statement" of deepertruth, "to know our faith, love our faith, and to spread our faith".

In the Catholic Faith, we have the opportunity to cast out our nets and discover we can go "deep sea fishing" that takes us beyond skimming the surface.

For many people, it takes a while to generate an interest to search for the "meat and potatoes" that can fill our hunger.

Jesus invites us to drink from the well that will never run dry. When was the last time you decided to pick up a bible and read it?

To examine the text, to pray over the message, to prepare for Mass? I believe that the more you put into your faith, the more you will get out of it and you will allow yourself the opportunity to grow.

Faith does come by hearing the word of God, but to keep this great faith, we must forever grow in our hunger and yearning to know God more.

From our Pastors Corner, in our bulliten, Father Downey writes, "Faith in Jesus Christ is a responsibility - a gift for sure, but nevertheless a responsibility.
If we don't engage the gift we have been given, if our faith is not working toward maturity, we run the risk of turning in on ourselves, abandoning God, and making ourselves the arbiters of truth.

This is what happened to the tenants of the vineyard in today's Gospel. They were mere lessees of the vineyard, not the owners.

But their pride blinded them and they forgot their identity - moving them to forge a new identity rooted in self-seeking. This false identity resulted in the oppression and death of innocent people.

Jesus is speaking metaphorically of the long lineage of authority figures in Israel (the tenants) and how pride overthrew their faith and moved each of them to dispel anyone who got in the way of their self-seeking.

Those who challenged their actions (the prophets represented as the servants and the son of course represented Jesus) would suffer the consequences. In our world today, there are many "tenants" and also many "servants".


Our responsibility is to engage our gift of faith and allow the Holy Spirit to move us away from false identity and mold us into our truest identity as servants, so that we courageously carry out the will of the Father - bearing fruit in our ownlives and in the lives of others".

Thank you Father Downey for this meditation. We are called to bear good fruit in our lives. And we are not to grumble when new servants get the same pay for working the vineyard. We are to celebrate their conversion.

We are called to love from a springboard truth and from the foundation planted along living water, planted near streams of running water.


We are called to study God's law day and night, it should always be placed in the honor of our hearts where it can grow.

Out of the mouth, the heart speaks. How precious it is to hear a child say something they learned from their parants reading the bible or talking about the faith. From praying family devotions!

In todays world there are many voices out competing for our attention.

Let us hold fast to the Gospel that helps us navigate through this challenging world.

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